


Resurrection

by babayagadook



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: F/M, Resurrection, episode 68
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-24
Updated: 2016-09-24
Packaged: 2018-08-17 00:11:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8123008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/babayagadook/pseuds/babayagadook
Summary: Percival Fredrickstein Von Musel Klossowski de Rolo III has fallen in combat and Pike and Vox Machina must fight to bring him back.





	

Pike was in the temple when she heard the shouts from across town. Vox Machina had returned. She smiled, gently touching her necklace, the symbol of Sarenrae, giving silent thanks that they had returned. She felt the necklace she gave Percival go off yesterday and she had never been so afraid. It saved his life, it served its purpose and she was forever thankful that she could continue to have Percival in her life. Her strange, engineer Human friend. She smiled, starting to run off the couple of blocks it takes to get to the Sun Tree, eager to see her newly returned friends and completely sure she would have to use a considerable amount of spells to get them back to normal. 

Pike didn’t hear the crying until she was almost around the last corner. The sound froze her in her steps for a second. She could hear Cassandra’s voice, but couldn’t make out what she was saying. Her ears were ringing and as if in a haze she broke into a full run. They were all standing there. Keyleth and Vex were sobbing. Vax and Scanlan looked as if they were trying to apologise to Cassandra for something. Cassandra was screaming something, tears streaming down her face. Grog looked like a broken shell of a Goliath. She didn’t see Percy. Oh, Sarenrae, she didn’t see Percy. 

She broke into their circle and her vision narrowed on the one thing she could not bear to see. Percival’s body lay there, scratches down his face, clothes frayed, and blood pooling on his chest. It took Pike a few seconds to realize they were talking to her, begging her to tell them it would be alright. Begging her to save her friend, as if she needed to be begged. She was already in the process of kneeling down beside the body before she even registered their voices. 

“I thought the necklace went off. I thought the necklace saved him. Did it not work?” Her voice wasn’t as steady or confident as she hoped it would be. 

“It did,” Vax muttered, sounding every bit as heartbroken as her, “But Ripley and Orthax were set on killing him.”

“You thought that it was a good idea to fight the only person in the world who is able to copy Percy’s weapons without me?” Pike was furious. Sometimes she wondered how they were even able to survive without her around, then realizing the body of her friend lay before her, knew that they really do not. 

“We had no choice, Pike.”

“You had every choice, Vax.” Guilt wracked her. If they had only called her before the fight she could have used Sarenrae’s power to project herself to help them. Then Percy’s body wouldn’t be here. “I need diamonds.”

“Oh, um, yes,” Vex wiped away her tears, now having something to distract her from the haze of grief, “How many do you need?”

“Enough that they’d be worth about 10,000 gold.”

“Done. Grog, the bag?”

Grog moved for the first time since Pike had gotten there. Her oldest friend was suffering more than he would ever let on except in their late night conversations they had when everyone else was in bed and the world was theirs alone. “Right, yes. Shiny diamonds just for you, buddy.” He handed her three diamonds, giving her a small smile in reassurance. 

Pike placed them on Percival’s chest, laying her hands above them and began her prayer to Sarenrae. She felt the warmth move through her, radiating from Sarenrae’s holy symbol. It moved through her, like a slow moving stream, down her arms, though her hands, out her fingers, through the diamonds, and into the body of Percy. The diamonds began to glow softly has her prayer continued. She felt a flash of acceptance as her main part was done. It was time for the rest of her family to play their parts. 

Keyleth was the first to move forward. Sobbing she placed Diplomacy on his chest. It looked like it was in need of repair, Pike registered as she continued to pray. “Percy. We…. I need you back. We have so much work left to do. We have to fix Diplomacy back up. I have to spend my evenings helping you in what little ways I can. I can’t lose you yet. Not now. And we have Thordak left to kill. You have Cassandra to take care of. Whitestone to protect. You have so much left to do, Percival.” Keyleth, fighting back the tears through her speech moved back, letting the tears flow. 

Cassandra was next. She hesitated for a moment, as if unsure, and pulled a locket from around her neck and placed it on his chest next to Diplomacy, right over his heart. “Percival Fredrickstein Von Musel Klossowski de Rolo III how dare you. How dare you even think to leave me to watch over Whitestone alone. You are the only family I have left and I cannot let you go right now. Not yet. Not ever. I know they’re all on the other side. I know you must be seeing them now. I know how much you’ve missed them. But I can’t let you go, Percy. If only for my sake, stay here. Just for a little while longer.” She placed a kiss on his forehead, stood and moved a few steps away, her gaze confident that she would not be losing her brother today. 

Vax started to move forward for the last offering, but Vex grabbed his arm to stop him. She continued forward in his place, weakly as if uncertain of what she was going to say or do. She laid one of the arrows that Percy had invented for her on his chest and stared on him for a long moment before speaking. “Percival. I… We…. We still need you here. We have dragons to fight. We have to destroy all the firearms that Ripley made and we are by far not smart enough to think like her in order to find them. We’re going to be useless without you. And I-no it’s silly really, and I shouldn’t say it over your dead body, but when else am I going to say it?” I need you to be here, Percy. We’ve both been busy with everything else going on in our crazy lives that we never got around to actually voicing our feelings, but I love you. And I’ve already lost too many people that I can’t lose you as well.” Vex placed a kiss on his cheek and stood up, walking over to Vax and burying her head in his shoulder. 

Pike felt the ritual end, the energy finally completely leaving her body and disappearing into Percy. She smiled a bittersweet smile. She had always known that Vex was in love with Percy, that’s why she never mentioned anything beyond that yes, she did in fact have feelings for someone. Vex deserved happiness and Pike was not going to destroy that for her. She knew if she would tell Vex her feelings she would move and let Pike have her shot at love, but Pike would never ask someone to give up their feelings for her. That went completely against her nature. Pike was so happy that Vex finally admitted her feelings. She was happy for her, truly, she just wished that Vex was able to come to the realization without having to have a reality check in the form of Percy’s death. 

The seconds dragged on. Each tick of the clock brought more and more anxiety as Percival lay unmoving on the ground beneath the Sun Tree. Sobs from around the crowd broke the silence as people began to give up hope. Cassandra’s confident gaze began to flicker as she, too, was on the verge of giving up hope. Usually the resurrection spell would work by now. She had never witnessed it take so long before. The dread started to sink in. Had Pike failed? Had her faith in Sarenrae not been enough? Had Keyleth, Cassandra, and Vex not been enough? Did Percy decide to stay on the other side after all? Percy wouldn’t have decided to stay, right? He had so much left to do. So much time left. He was so young. So, so young. 

Tears started to well in her eyes. It had been too long. She had failed everyone. If only she had been a bit quicker. If only she had more faith. If only she had been more powerful. She failed and everyone was going to suffer so much because of her. It was her job to fix people. What use was she if she couldn’t fix the man she loved? A sob wracked her small body as she lost hope of the spell working, her vision blurring out the form of the human body before her. 

A hand cupped her cheek, jerking her from her grief. 

“What’s wrong, Pike? There’s no reason to be upset.”

“There’s every reason! You’re dead!”

“Well clearly I’m not. I do feel like I’ve been run over by a herd of Goliath though.”

It was then that the realization sunk in. Pike hadn’t failed. Percy was alive. He was alive. The tears still blurred her eyesight, but tears of joy, relief, happiness. She had her Percival back in her life again. 

“Don’t you ever do that again, Percival.” She punched him on his shoulder. He was alive now, no need to be delicate with him. 

“I’ll try not to,” he groaned as he sat up, Diplomacy, Vex’s arrow, and Cassandra’s locket sliding off onto the ground. “Oh, I need to fix this, don’t I?” He picked up Diplomacy and started examining it. 

The rest of Vox Machina rushed in to smother their Human. Pike smiled as they all hid how worried they were behind teasing and jokes. She could tell Percy knew how upset they had been. He wouldn’t have played it off as no big deal if he hadn’t. Her family was complete again. Sarenrae came through for her yet again and Pike wasn’t sure if she would ever be able to pay her back for this act. She followed her family as they headed off to the nearest pub to celebrate death in the only appropriate manner; getting blind drunk. Though she was worried when Grog mentioned that he had a new form of alcohol from Ank’Harel and that Scanlan had a lot of drugs as well. 

Just another day of being apart of Vox Machina. Pike wouldn’t trade it for the world.


End file.
